Heat-Celtics: Game 3 Was the Real Rajon Rondo

Supposedly, Game 2 was Rajon Rondo's greatest game ever. He played 53 minutes and scored 44 points, after all. But I don't actually think of that moment as representative of the real player, or at least, how I've come to know him.

Rondo was simply knocking down the jumpers that were given to him. It was the right play and it helped his team, but a first-time basketball observer would have come away from the experience incredibly ignorant of Rondo's idiosyncratic talents.

The real Rondo appeared in a Game 3 win. He had flights of whimsy, like his behind-the-back ball fake. He had preternaturally natural instincts, as exhibited in his incredible steal from LeBron James. The whole way through, he was creating angles out of his opponents' anticipated assumptions.

While his line of 21, 10 and six was comparatively pedestrian to the Game 2 scoring explosion, the performance that came with it was familiar in the least boring way possible.